A dredge is a ship, boat, barge or other floating platform equipped with a pump-type excavation system. The excavation system removes material (e.g., debris, aggregate, ore, contaminates, etc.) from a lake, canal, harbor, river, ocean, pond, or stream bed by digging through the material, agitating the material and/or simply drawing suspended material to create a slurry from a mixture of collected material and water, and pumping the slurry through conduits to a desired location onboard the vessel, in the water, or on land. Dredging can be associated with many different industries, including conservation, construction, mining, and transportation.
The excavation system of a dredge is typically powered via a hydraulic system. In particular, one or more engines onboard the dredge generate mechanical power that is used to drive any number of different hydraulic pumps. The pumps supply high-pressure fluid to various actuators (e.g., to hydraulic motors and cylinders) associated with anchor winches, digging motors (e.g., bucket line motors or rotary cutter motors), ladder winches, slurry pumps, and spud winches and/or cylinders located onboard the dredge. The actuators are used to raise and lower a ladder on which the digging motors are mounted, to drive the digging motors, to swing the ladder and digging motors from side-to-side, to adjust pivoting of the dredge, and to pump the slurry mixture.
In a conventional dredging excavation system, each pump draws low-pressure fluid from a tank, pressurizes the fluid, and makes the pressurized fluid available to multiple different actuators for use in moving the actuators. In this arrangement, a speed, force, and/or direction of each actuator can be independently controlled by selectively throttling (i.e., restricting) a flow of the pressurized fluid from the pump into and/or out of each actuator. For example, to move a particular actuator at a higher speed, with a greater force, and/or in a particular direction, the flow of fluid from the pump into the actuator is unrestricted, restricted by only a small amount, or restricted to a first direction. In contrast, to move the same or another actuator at a lower speed, with a lower force, or in an opposing direction, the restriction placed on the flow of fluid is increased, reversed, or otherwise adjusted.
The flow rate of fluid into and out of a particular actuator is controlled by way of one or more valves associated with that actuator. For example, a supply valve and a drain valve may be used to connect either the associated pump or the tank with opposing sides of the actuator and thereby create a pressure imbalance that functions to move the actuator. Conventionally, the different valves for the different actuators of an excavation system are separately mounted at scattered locations onboard the vessel that are near the actuators, near the pumps, near the tank, or simply in an available space. Conduits extend between the tank, the pumps, the valves, and the actuators. The conventional excavation system may be complex, cumbersome, difficult to modify or expand, and expensive.
The dredge and manifolds of the present disclosure address one or more of the needs set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.